The Theatre 



State 



Sir Henry Irvine 






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ARTletVeRITATI 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Chap. Copyright No. 

She!f.i?Ji.2 6 4% 
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 1 . 



The Theatre and the State 



The Theatre in its Relation 
to the State 

By SIR HENRY IRVING 




RICHARD G. BADGER & CO. 

BOSTON 



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& & o & o 



Copyright 1898 
By Richard G. Badger & Co. 



All Rights Reserved 



GEIVED* 



NOV 1 % 1898 

*er of Go?} 




QEO. H. ELLIS, PRINTER, 141 FRANKLIN STREET, BOSTON 






The Theatre in its Relation 
to the State. 



IN a well-organized community 
everything has its purpose and 
its place ; and the whirligig of 
time gives, in the average, to each its 
proper value and importance. Thus 
the record of any specific institution is 
in miniature the life, or, at least, the re- 
flex of the life, of the community. So 
it is that, as a nation grows in power, it 
must grow in wisdom, or else the gar- 
den of its prosperity must lack those 
flowers of advancement and security 
which have their roots in content and 
which are watered by hope. 

Now in a university, — whose educa- 
tional process should be as truthful in 



6 THE THEATRE 

quality as it is wide in range, — when 
we discuss any matter, we must do so 
with an equal mind. We must, when 
considering abstract propositions, — no 
matter how their working out may be 
hedged in with practical difficulties, — 
recognize the principles of the greatest 
and the final utility. Remember that, 
if premises are correct and argument be 
exact, what ought to be is the sure fore- 
runner of what is. The wise and noble 
words of Polonius, in his exordium to 
his son setting forth to battle with the 
world, have a larger significance than 
may be taken in a play, or even regard- 
ing the narrow environment of the 
father's view : — 

" To thine own self be true ; 
And it must follow, as the night the day, 
Thou canst not then be false to any man." 

I have been compelled to lay stress 
on exactness, because I am about to 
deal with a theme which is now and 



fef THE STATE 7 

again subject to violent and unreason- 
ing attacks, chiefly from a class of per- 
sons with whom morality has the pro- 
portions of an exact science, and to 
whom toleration should be a final goal 
of intellectual ambition. Lessons of 
history should give to thinking people 
ground for thought. "It is the germ 
of the future which we seek in the 
past"; and, if I venture to call your 
attention to a few isolated matters of 
recorded history, without pretending 
for an instant to connect them in any 
way, I trust that you will not take me 
as even attempting to suggest an his- 
torical narrative, but only as illustrating 
my theme with indisputable facts. 

The same word, " theatre," having 
been used continuously as designating 
places of amusement and illustration 
from ancient to modern times, and 
under conditions of infinitely varying 
width, so as to render impossible com- 
parison as to aim, scope, or effort, must 



8 THE THEATRE 

of course be held responsible for much 
of the prejudice which exists in many 
places. What, for instance, can be 
held, in the moral aspect of the case, 
to be in common between the theatre 
of pagan Rome — where blood and lust 
and extravagant pandering to the worse 
vices of humanity were the memorable 
features — and the Elizabethan " thea- 
tre,' ' where the grave simplicity of the 
general audience was marked by the 
exceptional laughter of " some quantity 
of barren spectators " ? Or, further, 
what has it in common with those well- 
regulated theatres of to-day, supported 
in some of the most enlightened of 
foreign countries in part by State, and 
maintained among English-speaking 
peoples by purely individual effort? 
Nay, further still, what is there in com- 
mon with the lecture-halls of univer- 
sities, of colleges and teaching institu- 
tions, which still bear the generic name 
of cc theatre " ? For all practical pur- 



&f THE STATE 9 

poses we may take the word " theatre," 
in its popular significance, as a play- 
house,— a specially arranged place for 
the representation of the drama. By 
" drama " I mean drama as I hold it to 
be, the simulation of life in whatever 
aspect it may be taken, — serious or 
humorous or satirical, — but not the 
mere amusing displays of personal gifts 
which to-day are so prominent a feature 
in the relaxation of the people. 

From your watch-tower of learning 
you can watch with unprejudiced eyes 
the relative forces of education in trav- 
ail, and see action and reaction each 
doing its share in the great work of 
the furtherance of humanity. You can 
afford to theorize. Men and commu- 
nities not so effectively isolated from 
some of the worries and labors of stren- 
uous life may find their aspirations 
baffled and their moderated efforts 
crippled by their surroundings. But 
you can theorize to the full. The past 



io THE THEATRE 

and the present and the future are all 
elements in the consideration of what 
ought to be. Nay, the present, which 
is, after all, but a moving panorama 
before our eyes, and the past, which is 
but the dim shadow of humanity thrown 
backward by the eternal sunlight, are 
of lesser importance than the illimitable 
future which stretches before us, and 
which is in some degree, however slight, 
to be moulded by our own efforts. 

" When the dumb Hour, clothed in black, 

Brings the dreams about my bed, 
Call me not so often back, 

Silent Voices of the Dead, 
Toward the lowland ways behind me 

And the sunlight that is gone ! 
Call me, rather, silent voices, 

Forward to the starry track 
Glimmering up the heights beyond me, 

On, and always on ! " 

Whatever institution is of collateral, 
if not direct, good should be at least 
acknowledged as a factor of beneficence 



& THE STATE n 

to the commonweal ; and in the history 
of the country we find that, in the main, 
this is so. Little by little — some- 
times, alas ! by very slow and short 
stages, indeed — legislation throws a pro- 
tecting arm around such, and even com- 
pels or enables the whole community to 
aid an effort specifically. It is thus 
that the Royal Academy of Art ob- 
tained its charter, and later a local hab- 
itation by a grant of public money con- 
sidered at the time enormous. It is 
thus that the British Museum and the 
Department of Science and Art and the 
growth of the National Gallery have 
been fostered. Indeed, the plastic arts 
are, up to the present time, fairly well 
cared for. It is thus that throughout 
the length and breadth of the land 
libraries have been and are being erected 
by the means of public moneys locally 
collected. Many of us can remember 
a time when a great section of the pub- 
lic held that high education would de- 



^ *m 



12 THE THEATRE 

base and disorganize the masses. In- 
deed, the creation of the School Board 
system was against strenuous opposi- 
tion. Even now are to be found very 
many who hold that any education in 
the graces of life given in the schools 
of the poorer classes will have a malef- 
icent effect. But such ideas pass, in 
good time, into the limbo of forgotten 
things. Sometimes, when we look back, 
even at the history of our own time, we 
wonder how such narrow ideas could 
have ever had an existence, much less 
a force. We find, then, this general 
tendency to increase in many ways the 
sweetness of life, to relieve its dulness, 
and lift the minds of the people from 
the sordid realities of life. 

The aim and purpose of the drama 
is to cultivate the imagination, and 
through this means to bring home to 
heart and mind the lessons which tend 
to advance the race. Imagination is 
one of the most potent factors of hu- 



& THE STATE 13 

man progress. It stimulates effort, it 
enlarges the bounds of thought, it 
creates for the individual new realms 
of possibility, it clears away the intel- 
lectual mists of sordid reality, it har- 
monizes the seeming divergences in 
the great scheme of creation, it recon- 
ciles by its restful change poor hu- 
manity to the wearisome details of life, 
it brightens, invigorates, and freshens 
the jaded faculties. To the suffering 
it brings anodyne to pain, for the weary 
it creates possibilities of rest and repose, 
to the vigorous it affords a healthy and 
noble stimulation, generous in aim, im- 
measurable in scope, and myriad in 
detail. Surely, in the well-being of a 
nation, all that tends to such a whole- 
some and useful end is of prime impor- 
tance. Life on its practical side is, under 
the best of circumstances, so hard, so 
full of dangers, so restless in its de- 
mands of work to fulfil the ends of 
need or ambition, that the addition 



«mra 



14 THE THEATRE 

of grace and beauty and the serenity 
that comes from happiness are excel- 
lences of unapproachable worth. In 
the ever-widening efforts of beneficent 
government such ends should be, and 
in the main are, borne in mind ; and 
perhaps the greatest evidences of the 
civic advance of our time are afforded 
by the rise and multiplication of works 
which aid and encourage thought and 
grace and sweetness. The sweeping 
advance of science seems to open men's 
eyes to the many benefits of art; and 
the wide-spreading knowledge of art 
seems to shed its own enlightenment 
on the progressive needs of life, whence 
the discoveries of science have mainly 
their source. You here, in a university 
whose very name implies a recognition 
of all branches of knowledge, must re- 
joice when you think of the progress 
of humanity, which, though eternal, 
moves faster with the passing of the 
years. 



fcf THE STATE 15 

The theatre must always be an in- 
direct mechanism of teaching. Its 
work must be in the main transcen- 
dental ; for mere realism is insufficient 
to stimulate the imagination or to rouse 
the sensibilities, or the emotions. Now, 
in order to effect its object, the theatre 
must be a piece of very complete and 
elaborate organization. In fact, an 
inner knowledge of its working shows 
it to be one of the most difficult and 
varied pieces of mechanism of which 
human effort is capable. The mere 
study of the necessities and resources 
of theatre art — the art of illusion — 
should give the theatre, as an educa- 
tional medium, a proper place in State 
economy. Just think for a moment : 
a comprehensive art effort which con- 
solidates into one entity, which has an 
end and object and purpose of its own, 
all the elements of which any or all of 
the arts and industries take cognizance, 
— thought, speech, passion, humor, 



16 THE THEATRE 

pathos, emotion, distance, substance, 
form, size, color, time, force, light, 
illusion to each or all of the 
senses, sound, tone, rhythm, music, 
motion. Can such a work be under- 
taken lightly or with inadequate prep- 
aration ? Why, the mere patience 
necessary for the production of a 
play might take a high place in the 
marvels of human effort. Remember 
I am not speaking now of the art of 
acting ; for this art alone, which is, 
after all, the purpose of the playhouse, 
is one sui generis^ and which requires 
the labor of years to master. Surely, 
a medium of education such as this, 
whose end — unless we accept the dic- 
tum that to arouse emotion without the 
exercise of corresponding effort is im- 
moral—is the training of the sterner 
and loftier and rarer emotions and 
passions of men, and which in its 
own doing necessitates thought, study, 
constant and unvarying labor and self- 



& THE STATE 17 

devotion, should have fitting recogni- 
tion. It is hardly sufficient that in the 
economy of the State such exercises 
with their economic difficulties should 
be left entirely to the chance of per- 
sonal enterprise. To cultivate sym- 
pathy, that sweetener of the toils and 
troubles of life, that high-souled help- 
mate of endeavor ; to widen the under- 
standing of it ; to train the minds of 
the young to its beneficial exercise ; and 
to stimulate in all high and unselfish 
feeling, — is a good office in the govern- 
ment of men. And for this end I say 
the theatre ever makes. 

When we come to think that co- 
existent with all great public move- 
ments have been great waves of 
imaginative effort, we can well under- 
stand that action and sentiment, which 
is a child of imagination, are closely 
correlated. With the waking of Eng- 
land at the close of the sixteenth 
century, when her exploring ships 



1 8 THE THEATRE 

opened up new worlds, and her mer- 
chants and her adventurers swept the 
known and the unknown seas, adding 
to the national as well as the individual 
wealth, and enlarging the bounds of the 
national domain, came the rise of her 
artistic cult, beginning with one of its 
greatest glories, the rise of the drama, — 
the work of Shakespeare ; for Shake- 
speare's work was not only literary, it 
was done for the stage. With civil 
dissension came cessation of imaginative 
work of the highest kind, until, the 
turmoil of party strife abating, political 
satire was followed by efforts of pure 
imagination, by the ever-growing im- 
portance of art and art methods, by the 
rise of the novel and the recrudescence 
of the stage. From then till now the 
increase has been perpetual. Art of 
every kind has flourished. New arts 
and new phases or developments of art 
have arisen. Painting and sculpture, 
whose products a century ago were 



fef THE STATE 19 

represented by scores, are now num- 
bered by thousands. Music has in- 
creased throughout the country in 
every conceivable phase. There are 
many great musical academies and a 
Royal College of Music. Sculpture 
in many and varied forms seems to 
have restored some of the glories of 
the past, and there is manifest an ever- 
widening possibility of materials for 
the sculptor's art. Architecture in its 
domestic aspect has become a new art, 
and houses of to-day show sometimes 
the extraordinary advance from the 
crude utility of even a few years ago. 
Even the handicrafts which follow on 
higher artistic effort have developed to 
an immense degree ; and the beauties 
of interior decoration in both form and 
color — of furniture, papers, glass, plate, 
china, and all the paraphernalia of 
domestic life — are apparent to all. 
The beauty of books — printing and 
binding — has wonderfully increased. 



20 THE THEATRE 

Even the conventions of dress have 
been enlarged ; and there are, through- 
out the varying fashions, possibilities of 
individual taste which were unknown in 
a less liberal age. As to the develop- 
ment of literature, your librarians can tell 
best of that, with their groans concern- 
ing overladen shelves and their en- 
treaties for more space by which to 
cope with the increasing rush of vol- 
umes. Even granting that a large 
proportion of the works published are 
not of greatest worth, the residue 
is a noble tribute to the zeal and taste, 
the brains and energy, of the race ; and, 
when we think that of the large pro- 
portion of those works which are of a 
purely imaginative kind, we may well 
accept the manifest conclusion that 
imagination plays no little part in the 
life, the history, and the development 
of mankind. 

In the midst of these many develop- 
ments of specific art, let us see how has 



& THE STATE 21 

fared the one institution which makes 
use of them all, — the theatre. We 
shall, I think, find that through good 
and ill it has held its place, and can 
show as high a ratio of progress as 
anything else in the State. As a 
practical working institution, the theatre 
in England dates from the time of 
Shakespeare and his contemporaries. 
And in that age we find by analogy 
its place fairly marked by the records 
of the statute book and the royal 
ordinances. There is a common idea 
that actors are by law considered as 
vagabonds, the historic basis being a 
contemplation of the statutes regarding 
vagrancy. These statutes, crude and 
general in terms as were all or most of 
the early enactments, having been made 
and renewed between the twenty-third 
year of Edward III. and the fifth year 
of Queen Elizabeth, were variously 
repealed and consolidated in 1572, the 
act being the 14th Elizabeth, chapter 



22 THE THEATRE 

5. In this act, strolling players un- 
licensed are certainly classed among 
cc rogues, vagabonds, and sturdie beg- 
gars," who are in the preamble of the 
act termed c< outrageous enemies to the 
common weall," the penalty on con- 
viction being " that then immediatelie 
he or she shall be adjudged to be 
grievouslie whipped, and burnt through 
the gristle of the right eare with a hot 
yron of the compasse of an inch about," 
— a punishment only to be abated by 
some responsible householder taking 
him or her into service for a full year 
under proper recognizance. A second 
offence became a felony. The clause 
of the act " expressing what person and 
persons shall bee so extended within 
this branch to be rogues, vagabonds, 
and sturdie beggars," includes the fol- 
lowing : " pretended proctors, game- 
sters, persons c faining themselvs to 
have knowledge in phisnomie, palmes- 
trie, or other abused sciences,' quasi- 



& THE STATE 23 

laborers who will not work, unlicensed 
jugglers, pedlars, tinkers, pettie chap- 
men, counterfeetours and users of 
licenses and passports, shipmen pre- 
tending losses at sea." The following 
inclusion deals directly with the subject 
of actors : " all fencers, beare wardes, 
common players in interludes and 
minstrels, not belonging to any baron 
of the realme, or towards any honor- 
able personage of greater degree . . . 
which shall wander abroad and have 
not licenses of two Justices of the 
Peace of the least, whereof one bee of 
the quorum where and in what shire 
they shall happen to wander." 

This certainly marks an epoch and 
has a distinct bearing upon what has 
become lately a sort of shibboleth, 
cc the social status of the actor," of the 
time. It must, however, be remem- 
bered that at that period communities 
were small and constables few, and any 
incursion of a body of unaccredited 



24 THE THEATRE 

persons was apt to create alarm, even 
if not in itself a real element of danger. 
At that time, too, actors complying 
with existing regulations had a secure 
position of their own. The counte- 
nance of the court was given to players 
who were then, as now, under the 
jurisdiction of the lord chamberlain ; 
and, as is noticeable, the protection of 
a great lord saved the strolling players 
from the odium of arrest, with its 
grievous penalties, those only being 
liable who avoided fulfilling the con- 
ditions laid down by the law. It must 
also be remembered that in all the 
Sumptuary Statutes cc players in their 
interludes " were exempt from the 
penalties of wearing clothes out of 
their degree. All things are, however, 
relative ; and a better illustration can 
hardly be taken of the real meaning of 
the vagrant classification of the statutes 
— certainly, one which will come home 
to you who belong to this great univer- 



& THE STATE 25 

sity, which then, as now, basked in the 
full sun of national honor - — than 
another item in the category of 
cc rogues, vagabonds, and sturdie beg- 
gars " laid down in the act : — 

All schollers of the Universities of Oxford or 
Cambridge that go about begging, not being author- 
ized under the seale of the said universities by the 
commissarie, chancellor, or vice-chancellor of the 
same. 

Gentlemen, you will note that, if the 
Elizabethan player on tour had to sub- 
mit to dangers and indignities that 
compete with the modern perils of 
railway travel and undisciplined hotel 
service, he was not alone in his trial. 
Then — as I have the honor to do 
to-day — the player kept company with 
the scholar. Well, the times have 
changed. Under more favorable social 
conditions the scholar and the player 
alike may now follow their bent under 
less harrowing circumstances than then 



26 THE THEATRE 

obtained. When, however, laws fall 
into desuetude, they may often hang 
on unrepealed. cc What is every one's 
business is no one's business " ; and, 
though the vagrant conditions of the 
players were so changed that they 
themselves did not even know their 
legal obligations regarding travelling 
license, the craft was preserved in <c the 
rogues' category " at each renewal of 
the Vagrant Act until well into the 
present century, when some Parlia- 
mentary draughtsman, less hide-bound 
than his predecessors, discreetly drew 
his pen through the obsolete clause. 
In this respect the scholar, more in 
touch with legislation than the player, 
had long before achieved the same 
result. 

The growth of the theatre as an 
acknowledged institution in the State 
kept, in some degree, pace with the 
onward movement of the eighteenth 
century. Personal violence toward 



fcf THE STATE 27 

actors offending individual suscepti- 
bilities became superseded by statutory 
regulation and redress. Thus the 
cudgelling of a player by an offended 
Minister of State was followed by the 
Act of 1736 (10 George II., Cap. 28), 
which appears under a ponderous title : 
"An Act to explain and amend so 
much of an Act made in the Twelfth 
year of Queen Anne^ intituled c An Act 
for reducing the Laws relating to 
Rogues, Vagabonds, Sturdie Beggars, 
and Vagrants, and sending them whither 
they ought to be sent,' as relates to 
Common Players of Interludes." 

This act, which formally recognized 
the existence of proper theatres, pro- 
vided for the licensing of plays, and 
regulated the responsibilities of actors, 
held the statute book for more than a 
century. It was superseded, and its 
material provisions were embodied in 
the Act of 1843 (6 and 7 Victoria, Cap. 
68), which is still in force. 



28 THE THEATRE 

The above-mentioned legislation is 
not to be confused with the legislation 
affecting music halls, which began in 
1747 (25 George II., Cap. 36), and 
has run on widely different lines from 
legislation regarding theatres proper up 
to the present time. 

Still, this legal consideration has been 
rather repressive than helpful ; and the 
most that can be said is that the State, 
up to now, has, at the best, been in- 
different. It reminds one of the prayer 
of the sailor alone on an ice floe with a 
bear, when the moment for the joining 
issue had come : cc Lord, if you don't 
help me, don't help the bear ! " The 
general result has been that the theatre, 
unaided in any way, has worked out its 
own destiny. That this has worthily 
followed, where it did not lead, the 
advance of public enlightenment is 
shown by successive acts. For instance, 
Garrick relegated to the street the row- 
diness of the footmen's gallery, while 



ef THE STATE 29 

other public or quasi-public places long 
afterward tolerated the nuisance. Mac- 
ready abolished the promenade in his 
theatre, thus purging the playhouse 
from an evil which has continued to 
exist in other places to this day. As 
to the tone of the acted drama, this has 
always been more or less guided by the 
public taste. " The drama's laws the 
drama's patrons give/' is a forceful, if 
meagre, statement of a fact, it being 
always borne in mind that there are 
always several parties to the growth of 
public opinion, and that in their clash- 
ing is found the dynamic element of 
advance. The playhouse has often 
been the arena of the strife of public 
sentiments, and its changes the result- 
ant of opposing forces. For instance, 
the libertine freedom of the court, which 
had produced the effort, received a 
rebuff from the body of an audience 
when a comedy of Mrs. Aphra Behn, 
with the ever-popular Nell Gwynne, 



30 THE THEATRE 

was hissed off the stage on the first 
night of its production. In our his- 
tory we have read of books having 
been burned by the common hangman 
just as the author was pilloried, and the 
history of an unworthy play shows an 
analogy. The justice of the public is 
swift and strong. In fine, the theatre 
must ever be to a very great degree the 
reflex of the life of the people, — so 
long, at least, as Nature keeps within 
her accustomed course. For its efforts 
must run parallel to the workings of 
human life and human needs, — am- 
bitions, hopes, fears, and passions. 
Oliver Wendell Holmes says, cc Phi- 
losophers may argue how they will, but 
two things they cannot argue away, — 
the blood in men's veins and the milk 
in women's breasts." 

I before hinted at a limitation of the 
drama in the sense in which I have 
used it, so that, in speaking of the 
theatre proper as the home of the 



& THE STATE 31 

drama, it must be understood that I 
limit the use of the word accordingly. 
Although the purpose of the individual 
in the enterprise of any one theatre 
may be to amuse the public, and in 
such a way as to advance the prosperity 
of the adventurer, the purpose of the 
theatre in the abstract is not so re- 
stricted. The purpose of things has 
many aspects ; and, though the range 
of one who holds some part in it may 
be limited, the consensus of outlook em- 
braces the world. The lessons of life 
are not always didactic, and perhaps the 
most patent are those which are not 
formulated in books or taught in 
schools. Human nature is so con- 
stituted that it has inherent the natural 
elements of logic, — an understanding 
of the laws of cause and effect ; and, 
when once the premises are set forth, 
the result is pretty sure to be adequately 
arrived at. Experience is largely the 
teacher of complex matters ; and, as the 



32 THE THEATRE 

opportunities of civilization and the 
serenity of domestic life do not usually 
allow of the experience of the more 
rugged and dominating passions of our 
nature,— which are nevertheless latently 
existing, — it is wise in the economy of 
things that a fitting knowledge of evil 
potentialities as well as good should be 
afforded. Warning-posts have their 
place as well as sign-posts in the many 
cross-roaded highways of life. Never- 
theless, questions of the passions should 
in all imaginative work be very carefully 
dealt with ; and it is here that we may 
fear for the effects of that luxuriant and 
reckless quasi-realism at which certain 
imaginative writers, both for the stage 
and the library, aim. Questions of 
taste and decorum are perhaps more 
closely interlocked with morality and 
State prudence than would be at once 
admitted by the determined sweeper- 
away of landmarks. As one of the 
most expeditious of lesson carriers, the 



& THE STATE 33 

theatre should be subject to all wise 
restraints ; for evil as well as good has 
its machinery of advance. The wisdom 
of many governments has enacted laws 
and made regulations for the general 
good. Books and pictures, songs and 
photographs, — in fact, every phase of 
imaginative and imitative effort, — are 
subject to certain restraints. The 
operations of police discipline will 
always be necessary among the chil- 
dren of Adam. I mention this phase 
of the question, lest any one should 
think that I wish to set forth that in 
an imperfect world, where fallibility is 
almost of the essence of things, there 
is only one perfect institution, — the 
theatre. I simply wish to convey the 
idea that the reflex of human life is not, 
and does not require to be, more per- 
fect than its archetype, — that the mirror 
picture would not be true, w^ere it not 
to set forth the faults of the original. 
I claim for the theatre no exemption 



34 THE THEATRE 

from the failings of any organized 
effort. I wish no exemption from the 
operation of those laws of restraint 
wisely ordained for the common good ; 
but I do claim for the theatre that it 
may be, and is, a potent means of 
teaching great truths and furthering 
the spread of education of the higher 
kind, — the knowledge of the scope 
and working of human character. 

" Know, then, thyself. Presume not God to scan. 
The proper study of mankind is man." 

In fine, I venture to assert that, 
whereas the State should exercise an 
influence, ranging between control and 
aid, on all matters which have an in- 
direct as well as those having a direct 
bearing on its welfare and its progress, 
it should be even jealously mindful for 
the true good of those institutions which 
have power to touch the hearts of the 
people, to hold their sentiments, to 
awaken and stimulate their imagination, 



W THE STATE 35 

and so to aid in turning lofty thoughts 
into acts of equal worth. 

In this category the theatre is an 
item of vast potentialities, — a natural 
evolution of the needs and thoughts 
and wishes of the people, an institution 
which has progressed for good unaided 
by the State, and which in future should 
distinctly be in some degree encouraged 
by the State or by municipalities. How 
exactly this is to be accomplished re- 
mains to be seen ; but of this I am 
sure, — that the grave consideration of 
such questions as these in such a place 
as this is the forerunner of their ulti- 
mate settlement. What should be is 
ever the sure-footed forerunner of what 
is. Remember, I pray you, that you 
must no more judge an institution as 
to its final utility, so long as it is exist- 
ing under adverse or inadequate condi- 
tions, than you should take an ill- 
reared or ignorant child as a type of 
the highest culture of which humanity 



36 THE THEATRE 

is capable. Man, though made in the 
image of his Maker, is compact of 
many neutralizing excellences and de- 
fects ; and we must not expect from the 
kaleidoscopic groupings of such imper- 
fect items a flawless work. As the 
theatre must deal with the eternal con- 
ditions of humanity, so must it ever 
have weaknesses which result from 
human imperfection. But, as human- 
ity has its nobler part, so, too, the 
theatre has capabilities of good which 
are as illimitable as the progress of 
man. 



L 



BOTOLPH CLASSICS. 

A series of small volumes selected from the master- 
pieces of the world's poets ; artistically bound after 
designs by Mr. Frank Bird Masters, and the text en- 
closed by colored decorations of great charm. Each 
volume in a box. i2mo. Cloth, $1.00 each. 

NOW READY. 

1. Certain Maxims of Hafiz. By Rudyard Kipling. 

2. The Dream of Eugene Aram. By Thomas Hood. 

3. The Raven. By Edgar Allan Poe. 
Other volumes in preparation. 



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